Re: [PATCH 13/14] xfs: document the userspace fsck driver program

Allison Henderson
2023-03-01T05:43:32Z

On Fri, 2022-12-30 at 14:10 -0800, Darrick J. Wong wrote:
> From: Darrick J. Wong <djwong@kernel.org>
>
> Add the sixth chapter of the online fsck design documentation, where
> we discuss the details of the data structures and algorithms used by
> the
> driver program xfs_scrub.
>
> Signed-off-by: Darrick J. Wong <djwong@kernel.org>
> ---
>  .../filesystems/xfs-online-fsck-design.rst         |  313
> ++++++++++++++++++++
>  1 file changed, 313 insertions(+)
>
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/xfs-online-fsck-design.rst
> b/Documentation/filesystems/xfs-online-fsck-design.rst
> index 2e20314f1831..05b9411fac7f 100644
> --- a/Documentation/filesystems/xfs-online-fsck-design.rst
> +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/xfs-online-fsck-design.rst
> @@ -300,6 +300,9 @@ The seven phases are as follows:
>  7. Re-check the summary counters and presents the caller with a
> summary of
>     space usage and file counts.
>
> +This allocation of responsibilities will be :ref:`revisited
> <scrubcheck>`
> +later in this document.
> +
>  Steps for Each Scrub Item
>  -------------------------
>
> @@ -4505,3 +4508,313 @@ The proposed patches are in the
>  `orphanage adoption
>  <
> https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/djwong/xfs-linux.git/
> log/?h=repair-orphanage>`_
>  series.
> +
> +6. Userspace Algorithms and Data Structures
> +===========================================
> +
> +This section discusses the key algorithms and data structures of the
> userspace
> +program, ``xfs_scrub``, that provide the ability to drive metadata
> checks and
> +repairs in the kernel, verify file data, and look for other
> potential problems.
> +
> +.. _scrubcheck:
> +
> +Checking Metadata
> +-----------------
> +
> +Recall the :ref:`phases of fsck work<scrubphases>` outlined earlier.
> +That structure follows naturally from the data dependencies designed
> into the
> +filesystem from its beginnings in 1993.
> +In XFS, there are several groups of metadata dependencies:
> +
> +a. Filesystem summary counts depend on consistency within the inode
> indices,
> +   the allocation group space btrees, and the realtime volume space
> +   information.
> +
> +b. Quota resource counts depend on consistency within the quota file
> data
> +   forks, inode indices, inode records, and the forks of every file
> on the
> +   system.
> +
> +c. The naming hierarchy depends on consistency within the directory
> and
> +   extended attribute structures.
> +   This includes file link counts.
> +
> +d. Directories, extended attributes, and file data depend on
> consistency within
> +   the file forks that map directory and extended attribute data to
> physical
> +   storage media.
> +
> +e. The file forks depends on consistency within inode records and
> the space
> +   metadata indices of the allocation groups and the realtime
> volume.
> +   This includes quota and realtime metadata files.
> +
> +f. Inode records depends on consistency within the inode metadata
> indices.
> +
> +g. Realtime space metadata depend on the inode records and data
> forks of the
> +   realtime metadata inodes.
> +
> +h. The allocation group metadata indices (free space, inodes,
> reference count,
> +   and reverse mapping btrees) depend on consistency within the AG
> headers and
> +   between all the AG metadata btrees.
> +
> +i. ``xfs_scrub`` depends on the filesystem being mounted and kernel
> support
> +   for online fsck functionality.
> +
> +Therefore, a metadata dependency graph is a convenient way to
> schedule checking
> +operations in the ``xfs_scrub`` program:
> +
> +- Phase 1 checks that the provided path maps to an XFS filesystem
> and detect
> +  the kernel's scrubbing abilities, which validates group (i).
> +
> +- Phase 2 scrubs groups (g) and (h) in parallel using a threaded
> workqueue.
> +
> +- Phase 3 checks groups (f), (e), and (d), in that order.
> +  These groups are all file metadata, which means that inodes are
> scanned in
> +  parallel.
...When things are done in order, then they are done in serial right?
Things done in parallel are done at the same time. Either the phrase
"in that order" needs to go away, or the last line needs to drop

> +
> +- Phase 4 repairs everything in groups (i) through (d) so that
> phases 5 and 6
> +  may run reliably.
> +
> +- Phase 5 starts by checking groups (b) and (c) in parallel before
> moving on
> +  to checking names.
> +
> +- Phase 6 depends on groups (i) through (b) to find file data blocks
> to verify,
> +  to read them, and to report which blocks of which files are
> affected.
> +
> +- Phase 7 checks group (a), having validated everything else.
> +
> +Notice that the data dependencies between groups are enforced by the
> structure
> +of the program flow.
> +
> +Parallel Inode Scans
> +--------------------
> +
> +An XFS filesystem can easily contain hundreds of millions of inodes.
> +Given that XFS targets installations with large high-performance
> storage,
> +it is desirable to scrub inodes in parallel to minimize runtime,
> particularly
> +if the program has been invoked manually from a command line.
> +This requires careful scheduling to keep the threads as evenly
> loaded as
> +possible.
> +
> +Early iterations of the ``xfs_scrub`` inode scanner naïvely created
> a single
> +workqueue and scheduled a single workqueue item per AG.
> +Each workqueue item walked the inode btree (with
> ``XFS_IOC_INUMBERS``) to find
> +inode chunks and then called bulkstat (``XFS_IOC_BULKSTAT``) to
> gather enough
> +information to construct file handles.
> +The file handle was then passed to a function to generate scrub
> items for each
> +metadata object of each inode.
> +This simple algorithm leads to thread balancing problems in phase 3
> if the
> +filesystem contains one AG with a few large sparse files and the
> rest of the
> +AGs contain many smaller files.
> +The inode scan dispatch function was not sufficiently granular; it
> should have
> +been dispatching at the level of individual inodes, or, to constrain
> memory
> +consumption, inode btree records.
> +
> +Thanks to Dave Chinner, bounded workqueues in userspace enable
> ``xfs_scrub`` to
> +avoid this problem with ease by adding a second workqueue.
> +Just like before, the first workqueue is seeded with one workqueue
> item per AG,
> +and it uses INUMBERS to find inode btree chunks.
> +The second workqueue, however, is configured with an upper bound on
> the number
> +of items that can be waiting to be run.
> +Each inode btree chunk found by the first workqueue's workers are
> queued to the
> +second workqueue, and it is this second workqueue that queries
> BULKSTAT,
> +creates a file handle, and passes it to a function to generate scrub
> items for
> +each metadata object of each inode.
> +If the second workqueue is too full, the workqueue add function
> blocks the
> +first workqueue's workers until the backlog eases.
> +This doesn't completely solve the balancing problem, but reduces it
> enough to
> +move on to more pressing issues.
> +
> +The proposed patchsets are the scrub
> +`performance tweaks
> +<
> https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/djwong/xfsprogs-dev.g
> it/log/?h=scrub-performance-tweaks>`_
> +and the
> +`inode scan rebalance
> +<
> https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/djwong/xfsprogs-dev.g
> it/log/?h=scrub-iscan-rebalance>`_
> +series.
> +
> +.. _scrubrepair:
> +
> +Scheduling Repairs
> +------------------
> +
> +During phase 2, corruptions and inconsistencies reported in any AGI
> header or
> +inode btree are repaired immediately, because phase 3 relies on
> proper
> +functioning of the inode indices to find inodes to scan.
> +Failed repairs are rescheduled to phase 4.
> +Problems reported in any other space metadata are deferred to phase
> 4.
> +Optimization opportunities are always deferred to phase 4, no matter
> their
> +origin.
> +
> +During phase 3, corruptions and inconsistencies reported in any part
> of a
> +file's metadata are repaired immediately if all space metadata were
> validated
> +during phase 2.
> +Repairs that fail or cannot be repaired immediately are scheduled
> for phase 4.
> +
> +In the original design of ``xfs_scrub``, it was thought that repairs
> would be
> +so infrequent that the ``struct xfs_scrub_metadata`` objects used to
> +communicate with the kernel could also be used as the primary object
> to
> +schedule repairs.
> +With recent increases in the number of optimizations possible for a
> given
> +filesystem object, it became much more memory-efficient to track all
> eligible
> +repairs for a given filesystem object with a single repair item.
> +Each repair item represents a single lockable object -- AGs,
> metadata files,
> +individual inodes, or a class of summary information.
> +
> +Phase 4 is responsible for scheduling a lot of repair work in as
> quick a
> +manner as is practical.
> +The :ref:`data dependencies <scrubcheck>` outlined earlier still
> apply, which
> +means that ``xfs_scrub`` must try to complete the repair work
> scheduled by
> +phase 2 before trying repair work scheduled by phase 3.
> +The repair process is as follows:
> +
> +1. Start a round of repair with a workqueue and enough workers to
> keep the CPUs
> +   as busy as the user desires.
> +
> +   a. For each repair item queued by phase 2,
> +
> +      i.   Ask the kernel to repair everything listed in the repair
> item for a
> +           given filesystem object.
> +
> +      ii.  Make a note if the kernel made any progress in reducing
> the number
> +           of repairs needed for this object.
> +
> +      iii. If the object no longer requires repairs, revalidate all
> metadata
> +           associated with this object.
> +           If the revalidation succeeds, drop the repair item.
> +           If not, requeue the item for more repairs.
> +
> +   b. If any repairs were made, jump back to 1a to retry all the
> phase 2 items.
> +
> +   c. For each repair item queued by phase 3,
> +
> +      i.   Ask the kernel to repair everything listed in the repair
> item for a
> +           given filesystem object.
> +
> +      ii.  Make a note if the kernel made any progress in reducing
> the number
> +           of repairs needed for this object.
> +
> +      iii. If the object no longer requires repairs, revalidate all
> metadata
> +           associated with this object.
> +           If the revalidation succeeds, drop the repair item.
> +           If not, requeue the item for more repairs.
> +
> +   d. If any repairs were made, jump back to 1c to retry all the
> phase 3 items.
> +
> +2. If step 1 made any repair progress of any kind, jump back to step
> 1 to start
> +   another round of repair.
> +
> +3. If there are items left to repair, run them all serially one more
> time.
> +   Complain if the repairs were not successful, since this is the
> last chance
> +   to repair anything.
> +
> +Corruptions and inconsistencies encountered during phases 5 and 7
> are repaired
> +immediately.
> +Corrupt file data blocks reported by phase 6 cannot be recovered by
> the
> +filesystem.
> +
> +The proposed patchsets are the
> +`repair warning improvements
> +<
> https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/djwong/xfsprogs-dev.g
> it/log/?h=scrub-better-repair-warnings>`_,
> +refactoring of the
> +`repair data dependency
> +<
> https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/djwong/xfsprogs-dev.g
> it/log/?h=scrub-repair-data-deps>`_
> +and
> +`object tracking
> +<
> https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/djwong/xfsprogs-dev.g
> it/log/?h=scrub-object-tracking>`_,
> +and the
> +`repair scheduling
> +<
> https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/djwong/xfsprogs-dev.g
> it/log/?h=scrub-repair-scheduling>`_
> +improvement series.
> +
> +Checking Names for Confusable Unicode Sequences
> +-----------------------------------------------
> +
> +If ``xfs_scrub`` succeeds in validating the filesystem metadata by
> the end of
> +phase 4, it moves on to phase 5, which checks for suspicious looking
> names in
> +the filesystem.
> +These names consist of the filesystem label, names in directory
> entries, and
> +the names of extended attributes.
> +Like most Unix filesystems, XFS imposes the sparest of constraints
> on the
> +contents of a name -- slashes and null bytes are not allowed in
> directory
> +entries; and null bytes are not allowed in extended attributes and
maybe say "standard user accessible extended attributes"
> the
> +filesystem label.
> +Directory entries and attribute keys store the length of the name
> explicitly
> +ondisk, which means that nulls are not name terminators.
> +For this section, the term "naming domain" refers to any place where
> names are
> +presented together -- all the names in a directory, or all the
> attributes of a
> +file.
> +
> +Although the Unix naming constraints are very permissive, the
> reality of most
> +modern-day Linux systems is that programs work with Unicode
> character code
> +points to support international languages.
> +These programs typically encode those code points in UTF-8 when
> interfacing
> +with the C library because the kernel expects null-terminated names.
> +In the common case, therefore, names found in an XFS filesystem are
> actually
> +UTF-8 encoded Unicode data.
> +
> +To maximize its expressiveness, the Unicode standard defines
> separate control
> +points for various characters that render similarly or identically
> in writing
> +systems around the world.
> +For example, the character "Cyrillic Small Letter A" U+0430 "а"
> often renders
> +identically to "Latin Small Letter A" U+0061 "a".

> +
> +The standard also permits characters to be constructed in multiple
> ways --
> +either by using a defined code point, or by combining one code point
> with
> +various combining marks.
> +For example, the character "Angstrom Sign U+212B "Å" can also be
> expressed
> +as "Latin Capital Letter A" U+0041 "A" followed by "Combining Ring
> Above"
> +U+030A "◌̊".
> +Both sequences render identically.
> +
> +Like the standards that preceded it, Unicode also defines various
> control
> +characters to alter the presentation of text.
> +For example, the character "Right-to-Left Override" U+202E can trick
> some
> +programs into rendering "moo\\xe2\\x80\\xaegnp.txt" as "mootxt.png".
> +A second category of rendering problems involves whitespace
> characters.
> +If the character "Zero Width Space" U+200B is encountered in a file
> name, the
> +name will render identically to a name that does not have the zero
> width
> +space.
> +
> +If two names within a naming domain have different byte sequences
> but render
> +identically, a user may be confused by it.
> +The kernel, in its indifference to upper level encoding schemes,
> permits this.
> +Most filesystem drivers persist the byte sequence names that are
> given to them
> +by the VFS.
> +
> +Techniques for detecting confusable names are explained in great
> detail in
> +sections 4 and 5 of the
> +`Unicode Security Mechanisms <https://unicode.org/reports/tr39/>`_
> +document.
I don't know that we need this much detail on character rendering. I
think the example above is enough to make the point that character
strings can differ in binary, but render the same, so we need to deal
with that. So I think that's really all the justification we need for
the NFD usage

> +``xfs_scrub``, when it detects UTF-8 encoding in use on a system,
> uses the
When ``xfs_scrub`` detects UTF-8 encoding, it uses the...

> +Unicode normalization form NFD in conjunction with the confusable
> name
> +detection component of
> +`libicu <https://github.com/unicode-org/icu>`_
> +to identify names with a directory or within a file's extended
> attributes that
> +could be confused for each other.
> +Names are also checked for control characters, non-rendering
> characters, and
> +mixing of bidirectional characters.
> +All of these potential issues are reported to the system
> administrator during
> +phase 5.
> +
> +Media Verification of File Data Extents
> +---------------------------------------
> +
> +The system administrator can elect to initiate a media scan of all
> file data
> +blocks.
> +This scan after validation of all filesystem metadata (except for
> the summary
> +counters) as phase 6.
> +The scan starts by calling ``FS_IOC_GETFSMAP`` to scan the
> filesystem space map
> +to find areas that are allocated to file data fork extents.
> +Gaps betweeen data fork extents that are smaller than 64k are
> treated as if
> +they were data fork extents to reduce the command setup overhead.
> +When the space map scan accumulates a region larger than 32MB, a
> media
> +verification request is sent to the disk as a directio read of the
> raw block
> +device.
> +
> +If the verification read fails, ``xfs_scrub`` retries with single-
> block reads
> +to narrow down the failure to the specific region of the media and
> recorded.
> +When it has finished issuing verification requests, it again uses
> the space
> +mapping ioctl to map the recorded media errors back to metadata
> structures
> +and report what has been lost.
> +For media errors in blocks owned by files, the lack of parent
> pointers means
> +that the entire filesystem must be walked to report the file paths
> and offsets
> +corresponding to the media error.
>
This last bit will need to be updated after we come to a decision with
the rfc

Other than that, I think it looks pretty good.

Allison